Jebi gathered up their coat in anticipation of the cold outside. It was early enough in the winter that they had worn a lighter coat. The heavier one had a prominent ink stain that Jebi and their sister hadn’t been able to remove despite hours of scrubbing.
Jebi was the second-last to leave the room, following the other hopefuls through the hallway and out of the building. From the outside, it looked like any other ministry building, with its peaked roof and roof-tiles sporting stylized plum blossoms. But the old signs in Hwamal, the language Jebi had grown up speaking, had been replaced by new ones in Razanei script.
It doesn’t matter, Jebi thought. The Ministry of Art was still the Ministry of Art, no matter what language it was labeled with.
One of the other examinees fell in step with Jebi as they headed east toward a street with food carts. She was a drab young woman, her earlobes elongated by long earrings that jingled distractingly. Jebi wondered for a moment if they’d paint her ears faithfully, or exercise some aesthetic judgment and paint them without the stretching.
“How many of us do you think they’ll accept this round?” the woman asked breathlessly. She couldn’t have been older than sixteen or seventeen years, fresh-faced, her plump cheeks already reddening in the chill air.
Jebi fought down an irrational surge of jealousy. “I’m sure the Ministry has plenty of positions,” they said with false cheer. Did the Ministry even accept youths? “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get something to eat.”
The woman’s face fell, and Jebi lengthened their stride, leaving her behind in the afternoon crowd of people with government business, couriers, and, most unnerving of all, automata.
Jebi’s heartbeat sped up when they spotted the automata. From a distance they resembled ordinary people. They even wore clothes and smart black boots like ordinary people, to the extent that their blue uniforms were ‘ordinary,’ down to the golden Sun in Glory badges upon their chests and the vicious curved swords any Hwagugin would have been arrested for carrying. But the masks—their wooden masks showed blank visages with cut-outs for eyes, no nostrils, no mouths, only peculiar painted motifs.
Intellectually, Jebi knew that the automata would not harm them. Jebi hadn’t done anything. Unlike human police—whether Hwagugin collaborators or Razanei occupiers—the automata were impartial. They didn’t pick on drunks out of spite, or demand bribes, or beat up people who looked at them crosswise. But neither did they understand mercy, and they didn’t talk.
A patrol of automata and their human interpreter, who could be identified by her necklace and bracelets of wooden beads, marched past as Jebi got in line in front of a food cart selling fried pancakes stuffed with jujubes, nuts, and melted brown sugar. Jebi did not have as much of a sweet tooth as their sister, and they should save money until they knew they had passed the Ministry of Art examination—the Razanei had a positive obsession with paying on time—but they were so hungry. Their stomach growled as they inhaled the rich smells of the frying pancakes.
It’ll be all right, Jebi thought as they counted out the money for two pancakes. They had spent all their life practicing painting, even before the Razanei invaded; had scrimped for lessons from the best teachers they could find. Bongsunga hadn’t understood, exactly, but she had made her own sacrifices to help Jebi in their pursuit of art. And Jebi had seen the others’ paintings. There was no way they had failed the exam.
The pancake-seller made an especial production of Jebi’s pancakes, flipping the dough ostentatiously and juggling their circular spatula. Jebi smiled back, although they didn’t intend anything more than a harmless friendliness. Behind them, two people were talking about the latest Razanei troop movements as they continued to harry the rebels. The Army had recently secured an ancient Hwagugin observatory; Jebi was only middling educated in the ways of astrology, but their sister had a passion for it. They doubted the Razanei cared about stars and celestial cycles. It was probably about securing the high ground, one of the few military principles Jebi had any familiarity with.
When the two pancakes were done, the seller tucked them into a paper packet and handed them over. Jebi amused themself trying to figure out where the paper came from. Outdated examination papers were the usual source, but sometimes people used unclassified documents. This packet appeared to have been cut from a shrill essay on the encroachment of Western styles in pottery. Jebi had no strong feelings about the subject, but it made for entertaining reading, to the extent that reading was possible while weaving between the passers-by.
By the time Jebi arrived at their sister’s apartment across town, they had devoured the first of the pancakes and were seriously considering eating the second as well. They wouldn’t, of course. The whole point of having a sister was to share, and that included sharing your fried pancakes even if one was very hungry after a tense day of sitting exams.
In this part of town, people lived in family houses that had been converted to rental units. These particular houses had been confiscated from people who had put up a fight when the Razanei administration was consolidating its hold on the city. Jebi and Bongsunga had had a screaming argument before they moved into the apartment. Bongsunga had wanted to stay in their mother’s old rental, even if the roof leaked and it had been broken into twice and they couldn’t afford to replace the iron grilles over the windows, since the landlord refused to do it. (The price of metal had gone up precipitously since the Razanei commandeered the output of the famed Hwagugin mines both for their automata and their war engines, from tanks to battleships.) Jebi had pointed out that they’d be less miserable moving into a less dilapidated place, and Bongsunga had finally given in.
This particular rental was one of the nicer ones, not that you could tell from the outside. Bongsunga, who never did anything by halves, had insisted on seeing all the available units and haggling down the price. Now, to hear her talk, the whole thing had been her idea in the first place. Jebi didn’t mind. They liked keeping their sister happy.
Jebi unlocked the door and entered, calling out, “Are you home, Bongsunga?” They spoke in Hwamal; there was no need for pretenses here. They slipped off their shoes and added, “I brought you a—”
“Sit down,” Bongsunga said coldly. “We need to talk.”
Bewildered, Jebi set the remaining fried pancake on a table and began taking off their coat. “What’s the—?”
“Sit down.”
Bongsunga was already sitting cross-legged on a cushion in the middle of the floor, a folder in her hands, next to the baduk set. The game in progress, with its black and white stones, changed every few days even though Jebi never met Bongsunga’s opponents. Perhaps she was playing herself, or working strategy puzzles.
Her hair remained cropped short the way it had been ever since her wife Jia died in the war with Razan six years ago. Bongsunga had never grown it out once the mourning period passed, even though Jebi chafed at having to cut it every time it strayed far from its current severe bob. Bongsunga had taught Jebi to cut her hair when they were small, to save money, even before their mother died. Looking at it now, Jebi wished that their sister would get over Jia’s death—it had been six years, after all—then winced inwardly at their own insensitivity.
Jebi let their coat fall in a crumpled heap, which would ordinarily have occasioned a lecture. They retrieved a floor cushion of their own from the stack by the wall, then arranged themself on the floor, also cross-legged. A sudden wild panic seized them: “The landlord didn’t jack up the rent, did they?”